


Horror Vacui

by autiotalo (orphan_account)



Category: Die Ärzte
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:26:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/autiotalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Farin needs an audience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Horror Vacui

"What are you looking at?"

A stupid question to ask, Farin thought, considering where they were standing. He wasn't looking at the trees or admiring the sports stadium: certainly not while down below them, a heavy crush of humanity waved and cheered and jeered at Sportfreunde Stiller. It was a stupid question, so he didn't bother to answer it.

Bela's sigh was almost indistinct over the noise of the crowd, but he heard the scrape of boots across the concrete, and knew the moment before he did it that Bela would hug him. He knew it, and tensed against it, not wanting the comfort. Instead he watched the crowd, safely anonymous and apart, until he felt Bela settle against his back. A gesture of friendship, of love; and yet one that terrified Farin as much as he took comfort from it.

The sun on his skin had not been as warm as was Bela. He could feel the tickle of Bela's hair over the nape of his neck, and suddenly missed the breeze that stirred the treetops as Bela pressed closer to him. Black on black, cotton against leather: and then it was too close and he pulled away.

Bela let him go, but followed him with: "You know they're there. You don't need to see it for yourself."

"They might all go home."

"What, after Sportfreunde Stiller? Sure they will." Bela pointed at the far gate. "Look, I can see some people leaving now. Must've only come for The Beatsteaks, yes? I know I'd go home after that, watch _Die Alm_ or -"

"Shut it."

Bela looked at him, at the lines of tension through his shoulders, and then asked, "What is it that you do? Do you count every single one of them, just to be sure that this time there's more than last time?"

"I just need to know they're there."

"Of course they're there." Bela perched against the railing and turned towards Farin. He watched the sunlight die in his hair, and saw the eclipse of longing. "Where else would they be?"

Farin shrugged and relaxed only slightly. "You never know."

"No, you don't. But give them some credit." Bela slithered down the wall onto the roof and lounged there like a lizard basking. "Nice spot you picked for your voyeurism. I would've come earlier if I'd known it was such a sun-trap."

"I didn't notice." Farin passed a hand over the back of his neck and felt the damp strands of hair, the lick of sweat at the trim of his t-shirt. "And it's not voyeurism."

Bela gave him a slow smile. "Is that why you're all hot, hmm?"

"For fuck's sake."

"Nobody knows I'm here," Bela said, leering. "You watching them, and me down here…"

Farin made a dismissive gesture. "You would be watching me."

"Part of the pleasure of it. I like watching you."

Farin half-smiled. "I know you do. But that's different. You make me somebody else. Somebody better. Whereas they…"

He broke off at the next roar of acclamation from the crowd. The appreciation turned quickly to sounds of disgust as the band joked about football, citing recent victories over the host town's team.

Bela winced: "They're fickle. Touch a nerve and they'll turn on you."

"You should see them," Farin said. "So many people."

"I don't need to see them." Bela settled onto the roof with his back to the wall, the concrete barrier dampening the sound of the crowd. He shaded his eyes with his hand and looked up at Farin, almost apologetic. "I became an actor because I wanted to be adored. To be caught on film is to have the public gaze upon you all the time, even if nobody's watching. Kind of like those paintings where the eyes always seem to be watching you. Even if there's nothing in the room, those eyes don't sleep. They watch, constantly."

"I hate those kind of pictures." Farin shivered, and turned around to look up at the sky. The clouds were thickening, teased white cirrus turning to the grey of a storm-front.

Bela rested his forearms on his knees. He frowned at Farin's shadow as it shortened beneath the filtered light, and said, "And yet you do that almost all of the time. The basilisk stare of Farin Urlaub."

Farin paused. "It's considered polite to look at the person interviewing you."

"Look, not stare down," Bela corrected.

"I do not."

"You stare at the camera, too. You're supposed to pretend it doesn't exist."

Farin fidgeted. "It looks at me; I look at it. Makes sense to me."

"And if you didn't look at it, then it would move on – on to me or Rod, and you really can't stand that, can you?" Bela kept his voice carefully neutral for the punchline: "You're such a performance freak, Jan."

"And yet you're the actor," Farin said, and there was an edge to his tone far colder than the wind that had veered around from the east.

Bela tilted back his head. The sun still glared; Farin's face was still shadowed too much for him to read the expression. "I want the camera to love me: the camera, and nothing else. You know?"

"Yes." Farin leaned forwards and gripped the railing. The action brought him closer to Bela, but he did not look down. "Yes, I do know. But that's so empty, so… detached."

"Coming from you, that's rich."

"Don't hate me for what I need. For what I don't understand."

Bela reached out and ran the back of his fingers down Farin's shin. "I don't hate you. And I understand more than you know."

"Yes. You would."

Far off, distant but with a clarity that made the crowd groan in response, there came the rumble of thunder.

"What do you see when you look at them, now?" Bela asked.

"I see -" Farin looked at the swaying mass of the crowd. "I see demand."

Bela stroked his leg again, calf to ankle, and then rubbed his thumb over the dulled shine of Farin's shoe. "And what do you feel, when they look back at you, when they adore you and sing at you?"

"I feel… diminished; but at the same time it's the best feeling in the world."

"Like sex."

Farin was silent for a moment, and then nodded. "Absolutely. Yes. Always unequal. Never knowing if I'm the one being fucked."

"You can't control what goes on in ten thousand minds."

"No. But I want to."

Bela hesitated, and then said so softly that Farin nearly missed it: "All or nothing. You want more."

Farin lifted his shoulders in an almost-shrug. "But in asking for more, I must also give more, and I do not know if I can do that."

Bela shook his head slightly. "You don't need to do more. When you give four-hour concerts, they cry enough -"

"Me?" Farin looked briefly startled. " _We_ , Bela. We give four-hour concerts."

"You lead. I follow. Rod follows." Bela shrugged. "You're the one who needs it, not us."

Farin opened his mouth to argue, and then realised how pointless it would be. "I don't need adoration," he said instead. "Just affirmation, maybe. A sign that I'm here, somehow, and that…"

"People like you?"

"No. That they acknowledge me. That's all."

Bela leaned forwards and rested his head against Farin's thigh. "It changes, though, doesn't it. Between now and then; between now and twenty minutes' time."

"Yes."

"They're still the same. You're still the same."

Farin lifted his head as if scenting the air, as if he'd noticed the growing heaviness and the coppered crackle of the atmosphere. "It changes."

Bela stood and dusted himself down, wiping sandy grit from the soft folds of leather. He was slow about it, and felt Farin's impatience. When he was ready, he looked up, demanded Farin's gaze in return, and said, "When you look at me, what do you see?"

Farin closed his eyes, looking away without looking away, and did not reply.

"For God's sake." Bela came closer, almost touching him. "Jan. Answer me. Look at me, you bastard: look at me and tell me what you see."

The band below them came to the end of their song, and for a split-second there was a silence before the crowd roared. In that silence, Farin opened his eyes and gave Bela the sweetest, saddest look.

"I see something I cannot have, for fear of losing the way he looks at me."

Bela stared at him until he felt the first kiss of the rain, and then the thunder drowned out the sound of the crowd.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after seeing Die Ärzte at a festival in Germany in 2005. Farin stood on a nearby roof and watched Sportfreunde Stiller. Bela joined him a little later.


End file.
